Customers can buy the skills or services of their employees, like a plumber, a lawyer, or a consultant, from service-based companies. Since services are intangible and are different from products you can buy, the ways that advertisers promote them are also different. If you work in advertising, learning about services marketing could help you make more money, get more leads, and make more people aware of your brand.
In this article, we’ll talk about what service marketing is, the importance of service marketing, types of service marketing, service marketing mix, and more!
What is Service Marketing?
Service marketing is simply the process of promoting and selling a service or an intangible good to a specific group of people. It is a new way of marketing that has become very popular and helps companies all over the world promote their services.
It looks at how a certain kind of service is advertised in the market. Though service marketing is a unique idea, it needs a way to represent goods that can’t be seen (services).
Service marketing is different from product marketing, which involves promoting a product that can be seen. Instead, service marketing involves promoting a service that can’t be seen but is still sold to customers. Services are just things that are given to customers as a commodity. Customers can choose from a wide range of services.
Eventually, the global sphere has become a service hub that offers many services to customers all over the world.
Services Marketing Examples
Healthcare industry
Doctors, nurses, surgeons, and other people who work in hospitals are great examples they sell their health services by seeing and taking care of their patients.
Hospitality industry
The hospitality industry is made up of places like hotels and restaurants that serve food, rent rooms, give massages, and do other things for their customers.
Professionals services
Accountants, lawyers, teachers, writers, masons, carpenters, chefs, electricians, and plumbers are all examples of service-based jobs. Depending on the job, they may offer more than one service to their clients.
Importance of Service Marketing
Because services can’t be seen or touched, marketing them is a difficult but very important job. let’s understand why.
1. A key differentiator:
As products become more similar, the services that go along with them are becoming a key differentiator in the minds of consumers. For example, Pizza Hut and Domino’s both serve pizza, but they are different from each other more because of the quality of their service than because of the pizza itself. So, marketers can use the services they offer to set themselves apart from the competition and draw in customers.
2. Importance of relationships:
Relationships are a key part of marketing services, so it’s important to keep them in good shape. Since the product can’t be seen or touched, a lot of the customer’s decision to buy will depend on how much he trusts the seller. So, it’s important to listen to what the customer wants, meet those needs with the right service, and build a long-term relationship that will lead to repeat sales and good word of mouth.
3. Customer retention:
In today’s highly competitive market, where many companies compete for a small number of customers, keeping customers is even more important than getting new ones. Since services are usually made and used at the same time, the customer is actually involved in the process by taking his needs and feedback into account. So, they give customers more options for customisation based on their needs, making them happier and more likely to stick with the company.
Types of Service Marketing
In general, there are three kinds of service marketing one should learn about them to better understand the idea as a whole.
1. External Service Marketing
The first type of service marketing is called “external service marketing.” This is when a company promotes its services to customers in a setting outside of the company.
This type suggests that services be advertised using tried-and-true methods like price, product, and purchasers.
External service marketing is all about promoting services in the outside world (between the company and its customers) so that they are availed of and used well.
2. Internal Service Marketing
Second, there is internal service marketing. It is used to promote service within the company (company employees).
This means that the service is promoted internally so that employees know where it is and can spread the word better.
Since employees are an important part of the marketing chain, internal service marketing pays more attention to them than to customers.
It is very important for a company’s employees to know a lot about the service so that they can spread the word and help the company promote the service on a large scale.
3. Interactive Service Marketing
Maybe technical service is also a very important part that needs the third type of service marketing, which is called “Interactive Service Marketing.” Service promotion happens between the employees and the customers in this case (employees-customers).
Interactive marketing is a type in which the employees talk to customers to promote the services of their company, as the name suggests.
For example, the hotel chain Taj Hotels wants to advertise its services to the right people. Here is a short list of the different kinds of service marketing it will use to reach its goal.
- Firstly, the company will make ads that show what services the chain of hotels has to offer its customers (External).
- Then, the company will promote its services within itself to make sure that its employees are well-informed about what it has to offer so that they can help promote and sell the services (Internal).
- Lastly, the company’s employees will talk to customers when they use the service.
- This means that the employees will have to serve the customers in a variety of administrative and quality ways (Interactive).
Service Marketing Mix
The service marketing mix is also called an extended marketing mix, and it is an important part of the design of a service blueprint. The 7 Ps make up this marketing mix. Let’s talk about them in more detail.
1. Product
The product-service marketing mix is not something that can be seen or touched. Service products can’t be measured in the same way that soap or detergent can’t be. A good example would be the tourism or education industries. Service products are also different, change over time, and can’t be owned.
So, care needs to go into making the service product. Blueprinting is usually used to define the service product. For example, before starting a restaurant business, a blueprint will be made. This service blueprint shows exactly how the product (in this case, the restaurant) will be.
2. Place
In the case of services, the place will decide where the service product will be. The best places to put gas stations are on highways or in cities. A place with little traffic is not a good place to start a gas station. In the same way, a software company will do better in an area with a lot of other businesses than in a town or the middle of nowhere.
3. Promotion
Promotions have become an important part of the service marketing mix. Services are easy to copy, so the brand is usually what makes one service different from another. A lot of banks and phone companies work hard to get their names out there.
What is that? Because there is usually a lot of competition in the service industry, you need promotions to stay in business. So, advertising and promotions help banks, IT companies, and dotcoms stand out from the rest.
4. Price
Putting a price on a service is a lot harder than putting a price on a product. If you run a restaurant, you could only charge people for the food you serve. But then, who will pay for the nice atmosphere you’ve made for your customers? Who will pay for the music group you have?
So, these things have to be taken into account when pricing. When pricing a service, labour, materials, and overhead costs are usually taken into account. When you add a profit markup, you get the final price for your service.
5. People
One part of the service marketing mix is the people. People define a service. If you run an IT business, your software engineers are what make you who you are. If you own a restaurant, your chef and service staff defines you. Additionally, if you work in banking, your employees and how they treat customers show what kind of banker you are. In service marketing, it’s the people who can make or break a business.
So, many companies today are putting extra effort into training their staff in people skills and customer service with the goal of making customers happy. In fact, many companies have to go through accreditation to prove that their employees are the best. In the case of services, this is a USP for sure.
6. Process
The service process is how a service is given to the end customer. Let’s look at two great companies as an example: McDonald’s and FedEx. Both companies do well because they offer fast service, which they can do because they trust their processes.
On top of that, these services are in such high demand that they have to deliver at their best without sacrificing quality. So, a service company’s process for delivering its product is very important. It is also a key part of the service blueprint, which is what the company uses to figure out how the service product will get to the end customer before it starts the service.
7. Physical evidence
A very important part of the service marketing mix is the last one. As we already said, services are not physical things. But to give the customer a better experience, tangible things are also sent along with the service. Take a restaurant with just chairs and tables and good food as an example. Or, take a restaurant with good lighting, nice music, and comfortable seating that also serves good food. Which one do you like better? The one with a nice feel to it. That is physical evidence. In service marketing, physical evidence is often used as a way to stand out.
Conclusion
To sum up, service marketing is a way for a company to promote its services that are intangible, can’t be split up, and have a limited shelf life. In light of the growing global service sector, it is done in a number of different ways.
It is also very different from product marketing, and there are many things to keep in mind. In recent years, service marketing has become much more important as more and more services, like education, banking, hospitality, etc., become popular goods.
FAQs
1. What is Service Marketing?
Ans: Service marketing is simply the process of promoting and selling a service to a specific group of people.
2. What is the example of Service Marketing?
Ans: Examples include doctors, accountants, lawyers, teachers, writers, masons, carpenters, chefs, etc.
3. What is the meaning of process in Service Marketing?
Ans: A process describes the steps and methods that need to be taken to make and deliver a service.
4. How many P’s are there in the Service Marketing mix?
Ans: There are 7Ps in service marketing including product, price, place (distribution), promotion, people, physical evidence, and process.
5. How Service Marketing is different from product marketing?
Ans: Product marketing, involves promoting a product that can be seen. However, service marketing involves promoting a service that can’t be seen but is still sold to customers.
